


Silver Linings

by HalfshellVenus



Category: Die Hard (Movies), Die Hard 4, Live Free or Die Hard (2007)
Genre: Community: writerverse, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-04
Updated: 2015-07-04
Packaged: 2018-04-07 16:51:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4270728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HalfshellVenus/pseuds/HalfshellVenus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You can forget that not all surprises are bad.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Silver Linings

**Author's Note:**

> For the [](http://writerverse.livejournal.com/profile)[writerverse](http://writerverse.livejournal.com/) prompt of "Response."

x-x-x-x-x

John McClane had a very simple plan for life: _Don't fuck up, and keep moving forward_. The reality was harder to pin down, maybe something closer to _Fuck up less, and Just keep moving_. That was hard enough. He'd been a cop with a troubled marriage who became an overnight hero, then a disciplinary problem, then a hero again, then an attitudinal headcase-turned-hero. Now he was still years away from retirement (assuming he didn't get killed first) and still doing grunt work like picking up some kid in Jersey on the say-so of someone too far above his pay grade to even bother telling him _Why_.

He'd nearly been blown up within minutes of knocking on the kid's door, which was some kind of personal record, and shot at for the better part of a day. The clincher was when he actually shot _himself_.

It'd be great to say that nothing like that had ever happened before, but it wouldn't be true. The kid was new—thank God for the kid—and so was taking down a helicopter with a car. But the rest was the kind of craziness that made John focus on mottoes and shit in the hope of keeping his life under some kind of control.

As far as he could tell, it had never worked.

Finally, at the end of one of the worst days of his life, he found himself inviting the kid to come stay with him while they both recovered from their injuries. Blame the painkillers, maybe, because while John would start a gunfight at the drop of a hat, he wasn't the type to extend himself long-term for much of anyone. Hey, that "charity" shit would kill you.

Still, he'd done it anyway, and the kid had actually said yes. It had been a long time since John had been so goddamn happy to hear a _Yes_.

The two of them living in his apartment for weeks or months might be awkward and inconvenient, and yet John was totally looking forward to it.

Planning, he had finally decided, was overrated.

 

\--/--


End file.
